HEARST COMMUNICATIONS INC., often referred to as simply HEARST, is an
American mass media and business information conglomerate . It owns a
wide variety of newspapers , magazines , television channels , and
television stations , including the _
San Francisco Chronicle _, the
_
Houston Chronicle _, _Cosmopolitan _, _Esquire _, 50% of broadcasting
firm A a precautionary measure by Hearst in case the films didn't do
well, to minimize the impact of any flop on said comic's popularity.

Hearst established Cosmopolitan Pictures in the 1920s, distributing
his films under the newly created
Metro Goldwyn Mayer . In 1929,
Hearst and MGM created the Hearst Metrotone newsreels.

In order to spare serious cutbacks at San Simeon , Hearst merged
_Hearst's International_ magazine with _Cosmopolitan_ effective March
1925, calling it _Hearst's International combined with Cosmopolitan_.
The _Cosmopolitan_ title on the cover remained at a typeface of 84
points , over a 20-year time span, while the typeface of the _Hearst's
International_ decreased from 36 points to a barely legible 12 points.
Hearst died in 1951, and the _Hearst's International_ disappeared from
the magazine cover altogether in April 1952.

THE GOLDEN ERA

An ad asking automakers to place ads in Hearst chain, noting
their circulation.

In the 1920s and 1930s, Hearst owned the biggest media conglomerate
in the world. Apart from having highly circulated magazines and owning
28 newspapers in 18 major cities from coast to coast (many of them
under either the _American_ or _Examiner_ banners), read by one out of
four Americans each day, Hearst also began acquiring radio stations to
complement his papers.

After purchasing the _
Atlanta Georgian _ in 1912 along with the _San
Francisco Call _ and the _San Francisco Post_ in 1913, Hearst acquired
the _
Boston Advertiser _ and the _Washington Times_ (unrelated to the
present-day paper) in 1917, followed by the _Chicago Herald _ in 1918
(resulting in the _Herald-Examiner_) and the _
Washington Herald _ in
1922. Beginning in 1921, the company extended its reach, establishing
or acquiring the _
Detroit Times _, the _Boston Record_ (turning the
_Advertiser_ into a tabloid), the _Milwaukee Telegram_ and _Wisconsin
News_, the _
Seattle Post-Intelligencer _ (1921), the _Albany
Times-Union _, the _Rochester Journal_ and _American_, the _Syracuse
Telegram _ and _American_, the _
Los Angeles Herald _ (1922), the
_
Baltimore News _ and _American_, the _Rochester Post-Express_ (1923),
the _
San Antonio Light _ and the _
New York Mirror _ (1924). In 1924 he
also merged his Milwaukee operations with the Pfister family, owners
of _
The Milwaukee Sentinel _. Hearst owned the evening _Wisconsin
News_ while the Pfisters kept the _Sentinel_ adding Hearst's features
from the now-folded _Telegram_.

In 1925, Hearst sold the _Syracuse Telegram_ to the owners of the
_
Syracuse Journal _, while selling the _New York Mirror_ in 1928.
However, he kept overseeing both papers' operations, eventually buying
back the _Daily Mirror_ in 1932. In 1927, Hearst acquired the
_
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette _, which he switched with associate Paul
Block in exchange for the _
Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph _. That same year
he also acquired the _
Omaha Bee _ and _News_. In 1929, Hearst closed
the _Boston Advertiser_ (becoming the name for the Sunday _American_
until 1972) and acquired the _San Francisco Bulletin_ merging it with
the _Call thus, evening papers were more affected than those published
in the morning, whose circulation remained stable while their
afternoon counterparts' sales plummeted. Another major blow was the
fact that beginning in the 1950s, football and baseball games were
being played later in the afternoon and now stretched through early in
the evening, preventing afternoon papers from publishing all the
results.

In 1947, Hearst produced an early television newscast for the DuMont
Television Network : _
I.N.S. Telenews _, and in 1948 he became the
owner of one of the first television stations in the country, WBAL-TV
in
Baltimore .

The earnings of Hearst's three morning papers, the _San Francisco
Examiner _, the _
Los Angeles Examiner _, and _The Milwaukee Sentinel
_, had to finance the company's money-losing afternoon publications,
among those the _Los Angeles Herald-Express_, the _New York
Journal-American _, and the _
Chicago American _. The latter paper was
sold in 1956 to the _
Chicago Tribune '_s owners (who continued and
later changed it to the tabloid-size _Chicago Today_ in 1969, and
closed it in 1974). Hearst also sold the _Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph_
(merged with the _
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette _) and the _Detroit Times_
(merged with the _Detroit News_) in 1960 and the _Milwaukee Sentinel_
(which merged with the afternoon _
Milwaukee Journal _) in 1962 after a
lengthy strike, the same year Hearst's L.A. papers - the morning
_Examiner_ and the afternoon _Herald-Express_ - were merged into the
evening _
Los Angeles Herald-Examiner _. The 1962-63 New York City
newspaper strike left Manhattan with no papers for many months, which
affected the _Journal-American_. The _Boston Record_ and the _Evening
American_ were merged in 1961 as the _Record-American_. In 1964, the
_
Baltimore News-Post_ became the _
Baltimore News-American_.

Beginning in 1965, the Hearst Corporation began recurring Joint
Operating Agreements ("JOA"s); the first reached with the DeYoung
family, proprietors of the afternoon _
San Francisco Chronicle _, which
began to produce a joint Sunday edition with the _Examiner_, which
turned into an evening publication, folding the _News-Call-Bulletin_.
The following year, the _Journal-American_ reached another JOA with
another two landmark
New York City papers: the _Herald-Tribune _ and
Scripps-Howard 's _World-Telegram and Sun _, thus forming the _New
York World Journal Tribune _ (recalling the names of the city's
mid-market dailies), which collapsed after only a few months.

The 1962 merger of the Los Angeles papers had led to the sacking of
many journalists who went on to stage a 10-year strike in 1967, which
ended up accelerating the pace of the company's sinking.

In 1986, Hearst bought the _
Houston Chronicle _ and that year closed
the 213-year-old _
Baltimore News-American _ after a failed attempt to
obtain a JOA with the family publishers of _The
Baltimore Sun _ - A.S.
Abell Company - which coincidentally sold its paper several days later
to the Times-Mirror syndicate of the Chandlers' _
Los Angeles Times _,
also competitor to the evening _
Los Angeles Herald-Examiner _, which
folded in 1989.

In 1993, the _San Antonio Light_ was shut down after Hearst purchased
its rival, the _San Antonio Express-News_ from Murdoch.

On November 8, 1990, Hearst Corporation acquired the remaining 20%
stake of ESPN, Inc. from
RJR Nabisco for a price estimated between
$165 million and $175 million. The other 80% has been owned by The
Walt Disney Company since 1996. Over the last 25 years, the ESPN
investment is said to have accounted for at least 50% of total Hearst
Corp profits and is worth at least $13bn

In 2000, the Hearst Corp. pulled another "switcheroo" by selling its
flagship and "Monarch of the Dailies", the afternoon _San Francisco
Examiner_, and acquiring the long-time competing but now larger
morning paper, the _
San Francisco Chronicle _ from the Charles de
Young family. The _San Francisco Examiner_ is now published as a daily
freesheet.

In December 2003,
Marvel Entertainment acquired _Cover Concepts_ from
Hearst, to extend Marvel's demographic reach among public school
children.

In 2011, Hearst absorbed more than 100 magazine titles from the
Lagardere group for more than $700 million and became a challenger of
Time Inc ahead of Condé Nast . In December 2012, Hearst Corporation
partnered again with
NBCUniversal to launch
Esquire Network .

On February 20, 2014, Hearst Magazines International appointed Gary
Ellis to the new position, Chief Digital Officer. That December,
DreamWorks Animation sold a 25% stake in
AwesomenessTV for $81.25
million to Hearst.

In January 2017, Hearst announced that it had acquired a majority
stake in
Litton Entertainment . Its CEO, Dave Morgan, was a former
employee of Hearst.

On January 23, 2017, Hearst announced that it has acquired the
business operations of The Pioneer Group from fourth-generation family
owners Jack and John Batdorff. The Pioneer Group was a Michigan-based
communications network that circulates print and digital news to local
communities across the state. In addition to daily newspapers, _The
Pioneer_ and _Manistee News Advocate_, Pioneer published three weekly
papers and four local shopper publications, and operates a digital
marketing services business. The acquisition brought Hearst Newspapers
to publishing 19 daily and 61 weekly papers.

CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICERS

* In 1880,
George Hearst entered the newspaper business, acquiring
the _San Francisco Daily Examiner ._
* On March 4, 1887, he turned the _Examiner_ over to his son,
23-year-old
William Randolph Hearst , who was named editor and
publisher. William Hearst died in 1951, at age 88.
* In 1951, Richard E. Berlin, who had served as president of the
company since 1943, succeeded William Hearst as chief executive
officer. Berlin retired in 1973.
William Randolph Hearst, Jr. claimed
in 1991 that Berlin had suffered from Alzheimer\'s disease starting in
the mid-1960s and that caused him to shut down several Hearst
newspapers without just cause.
* From 1973-1975, Frank Massi, a longtime Hearst financial officer,
served as president, during which time he carried out a financial
reorganization followed by an expansion program in the late 1970s.
* From 1975 to 1979, John R. Miller was Hearst president and chief
executive officer.